Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Hartford, CT 06142
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Hartford, CT. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many individuals. There’s only on location to get the at a reasonable price and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for very small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, a lot of really don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most flexibility and many tool options. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC all set variations. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Hartford.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can find a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer a lot more rigid ways and usually more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig also offers a good CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they offer. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and attachments, however very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass suggests the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as great and subject to vibration issues. For example, they use numerous lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be little since the bearings are little. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Hartford, Connecticut 06142 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Hartford
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Many end up either extremely disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to choose a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware options in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were cumbersome at finest and actually just targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis makers. The very best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for bigger bearings.